Paris Great Books Club

Memoirs of Hadrian (French: Mémoires d'Hadrien) is a French-language novel by the Belgian-born French writer Marguerite Yourcenar about the life and death of the Roman Emperor Hadrian. The book takes the form of a letter to Hadrian's adoptive grandson and eventual successor "Mark" (Marcus Aurelius). The emperor meditates on military triumphs, love of poetry and music, philosophy, and his passion for his lover Antinous, all in a manner similar to Gustave Flaubert's "melancholy of the antique world."
Yourcenar noted in her postscript "Carnet de note" to the original edition, quoting Flaubert, that she had chosen Hadrian as the subject of the novel in part because he had lived at a time when the Roman gods were no longer believed in, but Christianity was not yet established. This intrigued her for what she saw as parallels to her own post-war European world.

Following a discussion of The Lord of the Rings over the last three months, we thought it would be fitting to see the ongoing exhibition “Aubusson Weaves Tolkien” which exposes tapestry based on the works of Tolkien from the renowned Aubusson workshops.

The event takes place at the Collège des Bernardins in central Paris. You can purchase your ticket for the 2 pm slot on May 11th here:

https://www.collegedesbernardins.fr/agenda/exposition-aubusson-tisse-tolkien-au-college-des-bernardins

You do not need to have read the book or have been at our discussion to come to this event.

The Great Gatsby is a 1925 novel by American writer F. Scott Fitzgerald. Set in the Jazz Age on Long Island, near New York City, the novel depicts first-person narrator Nick Carraway's interactions with Jay Gatsby, a mysterious millionaire with an obsession to reunite with his former lover, Daisy Buchanan.
After its publication in April 1925, The Great Gatsby received generally favorable reviews, although the novel was a commercial disappointment. During World War II, the novel experienced an abrupt surge in popularity when the Council on Books in Wartime distributed free copies to American soldiers serving overseas. This new-found popularity launched a critical and scholarly re-examination, and the work soon became a core part of most American high school curricula and a part of American popular culture.